Greg Palast: The RE-LYNCHING CYNTHIA MCKINNEY

In "The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney," I thought I'd perform a minor but laudatory public service: correcting a cruelly false statement by the New York Times, a fib repeating or repeated by other sources from National Petroleum Radio to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The baying of wolves followed my simply noting that the former Congresswoman's political career was utterly destroyed by bald statements, such as the one in the New York Times which stated, "Ms. McKinney suggest[ed] that President Bush might have known about the September 11 attacks but did nothing so his supporters could make money in a war." When I called the Times reporter to ask for the source of this politically suicidal statement of McKinney's, she could not find it. When I pressed, she faked it, pathetically flailing about with false attempts to cover the sloppy reportage, citing for example the congressional record (where it did not appear). [more]